Officials approve of care during visit to Lincoln nursing home

LINCOLN -- Responding to published reports of substandard care this summer, state regulators and law-enforcement authorities visited the former Maple Ridge Care Centre on Tuesday, but found no major deficiencies and concluded that care at the 126-bed nursing home may have improved.

LINCOLN -- Responding to published reports of substandard care this summer, state regulators and law-enforcement authorities visited the former Maple Ridge Care Centre on Tuesday, but found no major deficiencies and concluded that care at the 126-bed nursing home may have improved.

“We found a completely different facility than was portrayed in the articles,” Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff for Attorney General Lisa Madigan, told The State Journal-Register.

Officials from Madigan’s office, the Illinois Department of Public Health and state and local police were among 16 people who spent two to three hours at the nursing home as part of Madigan’s statewide Operation Guardian nursing-home compliance initiative.

“The facility itself appeared to be very clean and orderly,” Smith said. “There were a lot of staff attending to residents. It appeared to be an entirely different environment, which is fantastic.”

Newspaper articles prompted change

Smith credited the Journal-Register and Springfield-based long-term care ombudsman Jamie Freschi with helping to shed light on conditions at Maple Ridge. The facility recently changed its name to Symphony of Lincoln.

The newspaper has published several stories over the years about the for-profit facility at 2202 N. Kickapoo St., most recently on Aug. 26. That article described documented deficiencies and complaints dealing with unanswered call lights, rude and sometimes rough treatment of residents, lack of cleanliness and lax attitudes toward infection control.

Tim Fields, a spokesman for Symphony’s Lincolnwood-based owners, said Symphony has added staff and hired a new administrator.

Rutter, who formerly was administrator of Lincoln’s Christian Nursing Home, started at Symphony in mid-October, Fields said.

Fields said publicity about care at Symphony also served as motivation for the facility’s staff.

State officials did find eight convicted felons among the nursing home’s residents instead of the 17 listed in state records. But Smith said the record-keeping issue wasn’t a violation of state rules.

Upgrades planned

Symphony’s owners — Michael Munter, David Hartman, Debra Hartman and Gerry Jenich — took over in January from Shael Bellows, a Skokie businessman who had been the nursing home’s majority owner since 1996.

The new owners welcome constructive criticism, according to Howard Stone, a Chicago-area lawyer working with Symphony.

“It has improved, but I don’t think Cori’s out of the woods yet,” Neibuhr said.

Page 2 of 2 - Lincoln resident Diana Sexton said her 40-year-old daughter, Robin Peters, was unnecessarily transferred from Symphony a month ago to a Chicago-area psychiatric hospital. Peters now lives at a nursing home in El Paso.

“They wanted her out of there,” Sexton said of Symphony officials.

Fields and Stone wouldn’t comment on Neibuhr’s and Sexton’s statements.

Fields said a $500,000 renovation project announced in August will begin soon.

Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543. Follow him at twitter.com/deanolsen.